Did u get iphone 14
Even the iphone 11 is messing with me now lol
I went to the Apple store and ended up spending quite a bit of time looking at several different phones, especially the 14 and the 13 Mini.
All of the phones there made my eyes feel that dry/stinging sensation, so I figured that what I was feeling must have been unrelated to the SE- potentially due to the dry, cold weather that moved in right around the time I started using the SE.
Anyway, I took a chance and bought the 13 Mini since I really like that form factor and that size... and for 5 days I used it without any issues at all, no eye strain or headaches.
I am a light user, maybe a couple of quick lookups throughout the day, then an hour or so session in the evening going through a few websites, reading news, online banking, and social media- maybe 90 minutes of screen on time each day.
Yesterday I spent much more time- almost 3 hours- using the 13 Mini and my SE, comparing side by side to make my ultimate decision on whether I should return the SE since yesterday was the last day of my return window through my carrier for my SE.
I went ahead and returned the SE, but shortly after I ended up getting one of my headaches behind my left eye and back to the back of my head- one that doesn't really go away when taking pain reliever.
Now I will say I get headaches frequently and have been getting them since before using smart phones, but they've been more frequent in the last couple of years- but I haven't been able to tell for sure if they are ever triggered by OLED displays (I had a 12 mini for a year, then a 13 pro for a year).
It may have been a coincidence, but the last month when I was trying the SE phones (I made an exchange to upgrade storage a couple of weeks ago) has been better, without any "bad" headaches- so was this a coincidence? Or was it because I was on the phone for so long yesterday? And if so, was it because of the PWM on the 13 Mini, maybe I was just fine for the previous 5 days because my use was not for such an extended period of time?
I have no idea.
But I am starting to realize that I shouldn't have returned the SE... even if I can't say for sure if the PWM on the 13 Mini is a problem for me, it's probably good to not be using a phone that has PWM- and so if I use the 13 Mini for a couple more days and I have at least the same dry eye feeling that I had with the SE, I'll know 100% that it was not anything specific to the SE- and I think I will buy another SE from Apple (during the holiday period this weekend where they are offering a $50 gift card with the purchase) and return the mini.
It's so annoying how much time and effort has to be spent on this stuff, it shouldn't be that way.
You said your 11 is messing with you now? And it's the same 11 you were using with no issues before, correct?
I wonder if it's a temporary thing and things will equalize and you'll be OK after a while.
Back in 2018 I bought an XS at launch and it definitely was mildly irritating, it made me have this pain in my left eye. I returned it after two weeks and went to an 8 Plus- and I had that same pain in the eye for a full month, even though of course the 8 Plus has no PWM. After that month, the pain went away and I was back to normal. I suspect that type of reset will happen for you, too, going back to your 11?
Though it's weird about the SE.... not sure why that would be problematic for you or any of us. I thought it was the SE causing me the dry/stinging eyes, but as noted, it seems to happen now when staring at any phone screens- and I had an SE that I tried initially in early October that caused me zero problems- that was when our weather was still warm..... I foolishly returned it as I was still trying different models, and when I went back to another SE about two weeks later, that's when I started feeling this dry/stinging feeling- and that was exactly the time when our weather shifted in a pretty major way.... I can't figure out- if it's not just the weather and my eyes adjusting- why that first SE would have been absolutely fine and the next two I had were a problem. I suspect it was not an issue with the phones, at least in my case.
We know the SE does not have PWM, and I can't find almost anything about temporal dithering online- but that would be the only other thing I could think of that might cause a few isolated people to have problems. But, is dithering really something that is even used on the SE? And if so, does it only come into play when watching HDR video, or is it in effect any time no matter what someone is looking at?
And if it does have dithering, is that really a problem for anyone on such a small screen- or is that only a problem when looking up close at a bigger display like a computer monitor for extended periods?
So many questions.
